I looked for something I'd posted before on LJ and instead read my older posts, taken in by the passing years.

Fandom's been important to me, off and on, since I was pre-teen. Only I didn't know to call it fandom. I didn't know about secretive fiction magazines and snail-mail exchanges and the like. I missed it, but am nonetheless glad of its existence, and that it grew. Then the internet came, and the separate legs of fandom kicked and struggled, sprung up new, grew or died. Maybe not died, exactly--the thing about fandoms is they can be revived years later--a DVD gets first release, new fans come online... I've not seen a fandom flourish once it's slowed, but the fans trickling in afterward add to the narrative.

Weren't we all told to get our head out of the TV at some point? As if the places our brains go to after having seen an inspiring TV show or movie, or after having read a book, isn't important. Keeping your imagination alive in the face of all the mundane bullshit in our ordinary lives is more than important. It's imperative.

Anything creative has to be important, isn't it? Stories we tell each other, things we've pieced together that come from inspiration of all kinds: art, folktales, fairytales, pop culture, all of it brightness that leads our brains to imagine so many paths and struggles and solutions and loves. Of course, stories and art come from other places, too--from surviving very bad things. We work it out on paper and screen and canvas.

Or it comes from both places, or other places. It's about our journeys.

People who don't get into fandom point at us, and they don't understand, but they can't make it unimportant.

The Days:

1. Something old
2. Something new - talk about a new fanwork of yours!
3. Something you made for someone else
4. Something you made just for yourself
5. Something for a large fandom/pairing/character
6. Something for a small fandom/pairing/character
7. Something you're just really proud of

Something I made for someone else -

I participated in Yuletide 2010, and saw this prompt from lady_match, who requested an AU of Lonesome Dove (the tv movie/miniseries) - Gus and Call battling zombies! I don't care if the zombies in question are cows just something dealing with zombies. I'd love to hear their banter back and forth as they slay the undead.

I LOVE Robert Duvall, first off, and Gus, too (the character he played). I thought he and Tommy Lee Jones were extraordinary. It's an old western story, so yeah. Zombie cows. The poor, poor beasts.

Wild, Wild Zombieland

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If you're not into Lonesome Dove, maybe a poem instead? These were posted over at blood_and_pie for Valentine's Day, SPN fandom. I wrote a few, this one for becc_j, who asked for a Valentine from Sam (a phone call). I had that awful season 4 phone message, supposedly from Dean (but not really) to Sam, in mind.
Remember poor Sam's face while listening to it?
I'm not very good at poetry, but I gave it a shot:)

for you there are
no phone calls or messages
written in air, cutting with blood,
pronouncing time of death
to a heart
-my heart-
already stilled.

to you I make
a phone call - a message
spoken in daylight, splashed with gold,
wishing lollipops and candy canes
for a heart
-your heart-
still beating strong.

Happy Valentine's Day,

Sam

It's that time of year again, and I almost wish it'd happen more than once a year so I'd get more gift stories (is greedy). This year my lovely tipitiwitchet wrote me a story based on the Salem's Lot miniseries from 1979, with David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin and Bonnie Bedelia. God, I loved that miniseries (and David Soul, always, naturally).

The story is called "Taking the Yoke," and is as bleak as I have come to expect from my dark-hearted C:) I really loved it - it retains this whole stripped, lonely view of the characters from the end of the movie, and even the cadence of the one person they speak to, on the side of the vampires, sounds right - a bit old-world, like Straker himself.

The prompt I gave her (a bit of a run-on, yo): Salem's Lot the movie - after it's over, and Ben's killed Susan the vampire, and Ben and Mark are running - what might happen, how will Ben deal with/save Mark when vampires grab Mark and use him for bait to get Ben to come to them?

This also gives me the opportunity to post a couple of caps from the movie I'd made years ago - (oh, DAVID):

( Mark and Ben from Salem's Lot... )

I wrote a story for C, also based on a 1970s miniseries (who knew - we think alike), The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, which is based on Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. It's called "If Mine Eyes Offend Thee." Happy Holidays!

Title:           Burning From the Inside (crossover; AU)
Fandom:     Friday the 13th (2009) and My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Pairing:       Clay Miller/Tom Hanniger
Wordcount: around 4,000
Warnings:   Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Gore, Drug Use (mentioned), Insanity, Dubious Consent, Horror, Run-on Sentences 
                  and Intimations of OTP-ness
Alt Posting: A03
Summary:   Clay's broken. He's still going after Jason. And then he meets Tom Hanniger, who wants to help.
   

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Notes:
The story is based on a conversation during a walk that turned into a prompt, going something like this:
My friend and I are walking by the lake. There's a weird old tower thing on the shore, which turns out to be a water gauge. Maybe. It looks spooky. We take photos.
Friend says: And who wants Clay naked and splayed out/crucified on a tower?
Me: YES.
Continued via email, I write and say: Er, me. And who else?
Answered: I think maybe Jason does. Perhaps he's trying to lure Tom out of hiding? They came after him? Or maybe Harry left him there as a present for Tom? Or maybe someone else altogether? (see how she prompts me?)
And I say: I like Jason luring Tom after he and Clay came after him. Or this or that, or maybe blah blah. But what comes out of it all is close to this, the Jason luring Tom thing. Fun times:)

and here's the photo of the gauge/tower/wtf???

( spooky looking... )

Nothing like procrastination:)

I wanted to recommend my friend gryphon2k's new Planet of the Apes (tv series) story, up at small fandoms bang, called One Final Lesson. POTA was a short-lived series that really succeeded in characterization. The actors transcended the writing, but even the writing was fun if you take it for what it was. Anyway, the dialog in the story is good enough that I hear the characters speak as I read, and Gryph whumps very well on Pete, which is always a joy for me. And Galen (Roddy McDowall) really shines here.

I thought I might post a photo/piece of art now and then to show you some of the fan characters I've adored, past and present. Here's Dean from Dark Blue. It was a cop show on TNT in 2009, lasting two seasons. Dylan McDermott was in it, but he wasn't the reason I watched - his team was. There was Nicki Aycox (my favorite demon Meg from Supernatural) as Jaimie, with a past to hide; Omari Hardwick as Ty, the guy trying to make a marriage work, even though the work makes it almost impossible; and my favorite character, Dean (Logan Marshall-Greene) - prickly, belligerent, ballsy, vulnerable Dean (LMG is also in the forthcoming Prometheus).